Mark 4:1–20
1 Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. 2 And he was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: 3 “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. 5 Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. 6 And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. 8 And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.” 9 And he said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
10 And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. 11 And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, 12 so that “ ‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.’ ”
13 And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? 14 The sower sows the word. 15 And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. 16 And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. 17 And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. 18 And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, 19 but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. 20 But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”
As we saw on Friday this is another one of Mark's sandwich techniques were he interrupts his story to give an important theological principle that interprets the whole story. This passage (v. 10-12) is one of the most important teachings in the whole gospel, but also one of the most difficult to interpret.
In verse 11 the Greek ordering of the words adds emphasis to the contrast between "you" and "those outside". The twelve disciples are on the inside whereas the crowd and the scribes and Pharisees are on the outside. Formerly the lines were for the most part around national identity and legal observance, now those distinctions are changing. The "has been given" is what's known as a divine passive. The disciples don't attain this on their own; it has simply been given to them by God. The secret of the kingdom of God (the meaning of the parables and the identity of Jesus himself) is what is given to them, indicating that they are on the inside. Those in each category are not known immediately however. Some on the inside (Judas) are actually outsiders. Some thought to be on the outside (the demoniac, the Syrophoenician woman, the centurion, perhaps even a scribe) are actually on the inside. These categories are determined by listening, believing and allowing the word to bear fruit.
But to those on the outside he speaks in parables and he quotes Isaiah 6:9-10 as the reason for why he speaks to them in parables. His quotation is from the Targum (an Aramaic paraphrase of the OT text used in the synagogues) version of Isaiah so it won't correspond directly to our Bible's version of Isaiah. In Matthew's account he quotes more of the passage but here we get the shortened version. By quoting this verse he seems to be saying that he taught in parables not as a window so people could understand the teaching better but as a wall to bar people from understanding the true meaning. Why would he do something like that?
In the Isaiah 6 passage Isaiah has a vision of God's throne room. He is terrified because he is "a man of unclean lips" in the presence of the Holy God. That spells death for anyone. Yet, in a stunning twist of events, instead of him dying, a seraphim flies to him with a coal and touches his lips, making him clean, taking away his guilt and atoning for his sin so he can remain in the presence of God. This is a picture of the new covenant that God will establish with his people through Jesus and the reversal of the clean/unclean transaction. Then the Lord asks, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" Isaiah volunteers and what follows (our quotation here) is his marching orders. Essentially God tells him to go and preach to the people of Israel and in preaching to them their hearts will become calloused and they will reject him and his message. Isaiah asks, "How long?" God's answer is essentially until judgment has come in the form of foreign conquest. God had ordained judgment and Isaiah's preaching was to forecast it's coming.
By quoting this passage Jesus is saying that his teaching in parables confirms the states of his hearer's hearts. To those who see and understand (those on the inside) are his true disciples, while those who do not understand (those on the outside—scribes, Pharisees, the first 3 soils) will have a hardened heart against Jesus and never accept him. Their hardened heart will however bring about God's divine purpose and judgment—the crucifixion of Jesus as an atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world. John 9:39 expresses this idea well, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.”
As Edwards says in his commentary, "Mark is unwilling to relax the tension between divine sovereignty and human freewill in the accomplishment of God's will." (see resource below) I hesitate to open this can of worms at the end of today's devotional but the theme is unmistakably present in this passage. On the one hand Isaiah and Jesus are preaching to people who will not listen and their hardness of heart is required to bring about God's purposes. Jesus says he speaks intentionally to the crowd in parables so they won't understand him. There is no suggestion that the soil in the parable can change what type it is. On the other hand, the audience is called to "Listen!", and the good soil is the people who "hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit." This is why this debate between divine sovereignty and human freewill has raged throughout the history of the church. In passages like this the biblical authors refuse to "relax the tension." Therefore, it is and must remain a divine mystery.
Edwards, James R. The Gospel according to Mark. The Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos, 2002.